The Fairy Fluffmother

My first ideas

I have been a contributor to charity cloth diapering groups for a few years now. First the CDF, and then when that dissolved, I joined the Secret Fluff Attacks group on babycenter.com. I sent out MANY cloth diapers and diapering supplies and monetary donations to the CDF over the past three years. However, one thing I noticed with these groups was that the recipients had to be able to afford shipping their donated “stashes” back when done with them in order to keep those diapers in circulation. Well, as you can imagine, those without those funds (you know, like when feeding your family and paying your bills needs to come first) were unable to re-contribute and those diapers would be lost from circulation.

So, how about we create a system that includes a way to help with that!?

I used to collect returns/defects for a friend’s retail site and verify them for her. Her customers didn’t have to spend the money on return shipping, she got the defects verified and off the market, and I was able to repair them to either be resold or donated as was most suitable for each item. I paid for their pre-paid return shipping labels with the small revenue from my knitting pattern sales. A store for one thing paying for a service for another.

Why can’t we do that here?

Diapering and baby item “WAHMs” and hobby seamstresses would create items for both donation for those without the funds of their own (just like all the other donation groups), but they would also create nicer/higher-end items for selling. I was thinking like charity auctions.

Each featured auction item would be paired with donation item groups (new, used, and even end of life in need of repair). The starting bids would be just the cost of shipping for the two packages. The winner would get their featured item, and also pay for the donation package to get shipped to an in-need recipient. Any amount they sold for, over the initial bid price, would go toward a fund for pre-paid shipping labels and store-front costs only. NO profits would be made. I would keep the paypal records available to the public for audit to ensure trust. 🙂

The shipping label fund could also pay for shipping to and from a participant who has volunteered to do repairs on damaged diapers (another issues that was never really addressed in the other groups I’ve participated).

I feel like having auctions this way also helps more people be involved in the giving. You don’t have to have extra diaper supplies laying around or know how to sew, knit, crochet, etc. to be part of the giving. More people involved in the donations means more people we’ll be able to help.

Anyone else have any ideas they’d like to contribute? Please leave comments!

I’ve also created a forum where we can share ideas.

http://community.babycenter.com/groups/a6731827/the_fairy_fluffmother

And so it begins…